25 quotes from Scott Adams' newest book

If I were able to keep reading only one blog, it would be The Scott Adams Blog. While best known, of course, as the creator of the Dilbert comic stip, Mr. Adam's books and blog demonstrate that he is the most accessible, innovative thinker going. He's a button-pusher, he's apolitical, he's areligious, and he makes common sense and logic an art form. 

So I was delighted when his book, How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life came out last month. It moved right to the top of my reading list despite the fact that I just don't read success guides. If you need one though, you could do a lot worse than Adams' well considered, simple and practical strategies and advice.

A few lines that caught my eye...

...money distorts truth like a hippo in a thong.

Simplicity transforms ordinary into amazing.

Most people think they have perfectly good bullshit detectors. But if that were the case, trial juries would always be unanimous, and we’d all have the same religious beliefs.

Sometimes the only real difference between crazy people and artists is that artists write down what they imagine seeing.

Failure always brings something valuable with it. I don’t let it leave until I extract that value.

The systems-driven people have found a way to look at the familiar in new and more useful ways. ... To put it bluntly, goals are for losers.

... a goal is a specific objective that you either achieve or don’t sometime in the future. A system is something you do on a regular basis that increases your odds of happiness in the long run. If you do something every day, it’s a system. If you’re waiting to achieve it someday in the future, it’s a goal.

If you want success, figure out the price, then pay it. It sounds trivial and obvious, but if you unpack the idea it has extraordinary power.

Success always has a price, but the reality is that the price is negotiable. If you pick the right system, the price will be a lot nearer what you’re willing to pay.

Often all one needs is some form of permission to initiate a change, and it doesn’t always matter what form the permission is in, or if it even makes sense.

And then something interesting happened. It’s a phenomenon that people in creative jobs experience often, but it might be unfamiliar to the rest of you. Suddenly, out of nowhere, two totally unrelated thoughts— separated by topic, time, and distance— came together in my head.

The primary purpose of schools is to prepare kids for success in adulthood. That’s why it seems odd to me that schools don’t have required courses on the systems and practices of successful people.

When it comes to skills, quantity often beats quality.

... it helps to see the world as math and not magic.

I wouldn’t expect you to become a master of any, but mastery isn’t necessary. Luck has a good chance of finding you if you become merely good in most of these areas. ... Public speaking, Psychology, Business writing, Accounting, Design (the basics), Conversation, Overcoming shyness, Second language, Golf, Proper grammar, Persuasion, Technology (hobby level), [and] Proper voice technique

Today when I see a stage and a thousand people waiting to hear me speak, a little recording goes off in my head that says today is a good day. I’m the happiest person in the room. The audience only gets to listen, but I get to speak, to feel, to be fully alive. I will absorb their energy and turn it into something good. And when I’m done, there’s a 100 percent chance that people will say good things about me.

In today’s world we’re all designers, whether we like it or not. You might be designing PowerPoint presentations or a Web site for your start-up or flyers for your kid’s school event. You’re also furnishing your home, buying clothes you hope look nice to others, and so on. Design used to be the exclusive domain of artists and other experts. Now we’re all expected to have a working understanding of design.

The reality is that everyone is a basket case on the inside. Some people just hide it better.

It’s surprising how uncommon common sense is.

If you can deliver an image of decisiveness, no matter how disingenuous, others will see it as leadership.

.. the important patterns for success that I’ve noticed over the years. ...  Lack of fear of embarrassment, Education (the right kind), Exercise

A lack of fear of embarrassment is what allows one to be proactive. It’s what makes a person take on challenges that others write off as too risky.

I believe exercise makes people smarter, psychologically braver, more creative, more energetic, and more influential.

People need permission to be funny in social or business settings because there’s always a risk that comes with humor. You will do people a big favor when you remove some of that risk by going first.

Humor also makes you more creative, at least in the short run. I think it has something to do with the fact that humor is a violation of straight-line thinking. Humor temporarily shuts down the commonsense program in your moist robot brain and boots the random idea generator. At least it feels that way to me, figuratively speaking. Perhaps all that is happening is that humor makes one feel energized and relaxed at the same time and that is bound to help creativity.

Comments

[هولدن]

great
i love it